STATE OF DEMOCRACY IN MONGOLIA A DESK STUDY Dr. Todd Landman Marco Larizza Claire McEvoy Human Rights Centre University of Essex Wivenhoe Park Colchester Essex CO4 3SQ United Kingdom www.essex.ac.uk Paper prepared for ‘Democracy Development in Mongolia: Challenges and Opportunities’, National Conference, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia 30 June to 1 July 2005. Contents List of Tables and figures i 1.Main Findings 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Timeline of Mongolian Democratisation 2 1.3 Main Findings 3 2. Objectives and Approach 5 2.1. Background 5 2.2. The State of Democracy Framework 6 2.2.1. Purpose 6 2.2.2. Values and principles 6 2.2.3. Methodology 6 2.3 Desk study as a diagnostic tool 8 2.3.1. Trends and patterns 8 2.3.2 Gaps 9 3. State of democracy analysis 10 3.1 Citizenship, Law, and Rights 10 3.1.1. Nationhood and citizenship 10 3.1.2. The Rule of law and access to justice 10 3.1.3. Civil and political rights 11 3.1.4. Economic and social rights 15 3.1.5. Areas in need of further analysis 27 3.2. Representative and accountable government 27 3.2.1. Free and fair elections 27 3.2.2. Democratic role of political parties 29 3.2.3. Government effectiveness and accountability 30 3.2.4. Civilian control of military and police 32 3.2.5. Minimizing corruption 33 3.2.5. Areas in need of further analysis 36 3.3. Civil society and popular participation 37 3.3.1. The media in a democratic society 37 3.3.2. Political participation 38 3.3.3. Government responsiveness 39 3.3.4. Decentralisation 39 3.3.5. Areas in need of further analysis 39 3.4 Democracy beyond the state 40 3.4.1. International dimensions of democracy 40 3.4.2. External dependence 40 3.4.3. International human rights treaty obligations 41 3.4.3. Areas in need of further analysis 43 4. Conclusions and recommendations 44 4.1. Conclusions 44 4.2. Recommendations 46 5. Notes on the authors 48 6. References 49 List of tables and figures Tables Table 2.1. Main pillars and subcategories in the state of democracy 8 framework Table 3.1. Millennium development goals 21 Table 3.2. Mongolian Parliamentary Elections 28 Table 3.3. Mongolian Presidential Elections 29 Table 3.4. Mongolian Political Parties 30 Table 3.5 Voter Turnout in Parliamentary Elections 38 Table 3.6 Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections 38 Table 3.7. Mongolia’s Record of International Human Rights Treaty 41 Ratification Figures Figure 2.1. Mediating values, requirements, and institutional means 7 Figure 3.1. Freedom House Civil and Political Rights, 1990-2004 12 Figure 3.2. Political Terror Scale, 1991-2003 12 Figure 3.3. Torture, 1990-1999 13 Figure 3.4 Physical Integrity Rights 13 Figure 3.5. Civil and Political Rights Factor Scores 14 Figure 3.6 Per capita GDP in Mongolia, 1990-2000. 16 Figure 3.7 Percent employed in Agriculture and Industry, and Unemployed, 17 1990-2002 Figure 3.8. Imports and exports (% of GDP), 1990-1998 17 Figure 3.9 Net foreign direct investment (% of GDP), 1993-2003 18 Figure 3.10. Total foreign aid per capita, 1990-2003 18 Figure 3.11. Level of Economic Freedom, 1995-2004 19 Figure 3.12. Government expenditure on health, education, and the military 20 (% of GDP), 1990-2002 Figure 3.13 Central government debt (% of GDP), 1992-1998 20 Figure 3.14. Quality of governance, 1996-2004 (World Bank) 31 Figure 3.15. Popular attitudes to the transition and political institutions, 31 1999-2005 Figure 3.16. Popular support for democracy in Mongolia 32 Figure 3.17. Military expenditure, 1990-1997 33 Figure 3.18. Perception on the scale of corruption 1999-2004 35 Figure 3.19. Perceptions of corruption: institutions and organizations, 2004 35 Figure 3.20. Corrupt practices among the professions, 2004 36 Figure 3.21. Press Freedom, 1994-2004 38 Figure 3.22. US Overseas Loans and Grants 41 Figure 4.1. Democratic institutions and rights, 1985-2003 46 i 1. MAIN FINDINGS 1.1 Introduction Since its democratic transition in 1990, Mongolia represents a primary example of a ‘least likely’ (Eckstein 1975; Landman 2003) case of democratisation in relation to other ‘fourth wave’ democracies (Doorenspleet 2000; 2001) and in the Central Asian region itself (Fish 1998, 2001; Sabloff 2002; Fritz 2002). The political system that has been established meets most of the minimal and procedural criteria for democracy outlined by democracy analysts (Diamond 1999; Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, and Limongi 2000), has a competitive and developed political party system and has maintained peaceful and regular transfers of power over five successive parliamentary elections (1990, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004) and four presidential elections (1993, 1997, 2001, 2005) (see www.idea.int). It is ‘least likely’ since it lacks the standard ‘prerequisites’ for democracy posited by the modernization perspective, it lacks the certain cultural factors seen to be essential for democracy, and it has established democracy among a set of comparable post-communist neighbours that have remained (or become) largely undemocratic. First, Mongolia does not fit the expectations of either the endogenous or exogenous versions of modernization theory. The endogenous version of modernization theory has long argued that high levels of economic development are conducive to democratisation, and countless global statistical analyses have sought to establish this empirical generalization (e.g. Lipset 1959; Burkhart and Lewis-Beck 1994; Helliwell 1994; Boix 2003; Vanhanen 1997). The exogenous version of modernization theory argues that once democracy is established in wealthy countries, it tends not to collapse (Przeworski and Limongi 1997; Landman 2005a). In either case, Mongolia has democratised in the absence of high levels of economic development (Fish 1998, 2001; Fritz 2002). Second, Mongolia belies the expectations of certain cultural theories of democratisation, which posit a significant relationship between the establishment of democracy on the one hand and the predominance of Western Christianity and the separation of church and state on the other (Sabloff 2002: 19; Lee 2002: 829). Mongolia is 90 percent Buddhist and the church and state were only separated during the 1911-1921 Revolution, which led to the long period of totalitarian rule modelled after the Soviet system. Third, Mongolia is an exception for its level of democratisation compared to its distance from the possible spatial influences of the West (Kopstein and Reilly 2000: 9-12). Fourth, outside these socio- economic, cultural, and general geographical concerns, Mongolia serves as an exception to broader regional trends. Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have had significant difficulties in establishing even basic democratic institutions and procedures, and have had persistent problems with the violation of fundamental human rights (Fish 1998; 2001; Kopstein and Reilly 2000; McFaul 2002), while Mongolia’s process of democratisation has not been subject to undue interference from either Russia or China (Fish 1998, 2001; Fritz 2002; Sabloff 2002). In light of the exceptional and anomalous nature of Mongolian democratisation, this desk study provides a preliminary set of findings on the state of Mongolian democracy. Such a study serves as part of Mongolia’s larger quest under the auspices of the Fifth International Conference of New and Restored Democracies (ICNRD-5) and the Ulaanbaatar Plan of Action to carry out its own state of democracy assessment; share its knowledge, skills and technical capacity with other new democracies; develop a set of core and satellite democratic governance indicators (DGIs) that can be used by other countries in Central Asia; and make a lasting contribution to democratisation more generally by providing useful input into the Sixth International Conference of New and Restored Democracies (ICNRD-6) to take place in November 2006 in Doha, Qatar. The desk study uses a well-established methodology for carrying out democracy assessment that has now been applied around the world across numerous single country studies and two comparative studies on the state of democracy in Asia and Africa. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) has developed this methodology in partnership with the UK Democratic Audit and the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex (see Beetham 2005). For this desk study, the methodology has been combined with extant quantitative democratic governance indicators to provide a robust a picture as possible on the state of democracy in Mongolia using publicly available information. Its results are organised across the four main pillars of the International IDEA democracy assessment framework: (1) Citizenship, Law, and Rights; (2) Representative and Accountable Government; (3) Civil Society and Popular Participation; and (4) Democracy Beyond the State. The study draws together what is known and publicly available concerning these main pillars, identifies areas in need of further research, and makes concluding observations and recommendations for carrying out the full assessment. The desk study thus serves as a primer on carrying out a full democracy assessment, as a diagnostic tool for identifying those aspects of Mongolian democracy that need to be researched further, and as an advocacy tool for continued reform, progress, and development of Mongolian democracy. 1.2. Timeline of Mongolian Democracy1 1990 - Street demonstrations force resignation of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) Politburo. Political parties are legalised. Elections to the Great Hural (parliament) are won by the MPRP, but 19 of the 50 seats in a new standing legislature go to non- communists. 1992 - Mongolia's new constitution gives first place to human rights and freedoms. In the first democratic elections the MPRP wins 71 of the 76 seats in the new single-chamber Great Hural.